I just had a great idea for one, would work just fine on the regular 945 systems too... plug in 2 usb controllers for a really mobile little machine to play roms on, mini arcade... i think i just gave myself a reason to buy one :) Reply

I don't feel to excited about the Atom any more. 9400M is overrated, mainly because of Apple, a Conroe-L would be so much better too. Atom will never cut it for multimedia. Even the AMD Neo is a bit weak but at least it's powerful enough for Vista Business. Atom is a nice chip for embedded computing but I don't care for it any where else. Netbooks is fun but I don't care much for XP Home or linpus/xandros (I would just install a distro my self) and Netbooks with hard drives or a bit bigger SSDs aren't cheap. So they don't feel like the right device for me. Reply

I have been building ITX systems for 6 years, I am well aware of the cases available.

Re-read what I said:

The real problem is the case, we need better slimmer cases with heatpipe cooling (no moving parts). Lian Li needs to get on it and make a Mini-itx case.

As I said, the current crop of cases is too bulky and stupid looking with not enough cooling.

If you allowed the unit to be only as tall as the rear panel I/O and used a good heatpipe to one side of the motherboard PCB, with room for either an expansion card to the other side with a 90° header you could get a 9800GT and a 3.2Ghz dual core into a case a little bigger than a Eeepc 904, with a heck of a lot more power.

That case can hold a full ATX board with a dual-slot pci-e card, a full hard drive (or two), and isn't all that much bigger than most ITX cases.

I have some requirements:

Slim (as mentioned, only 2-3cm more than the rear panel header opening)

No moving parts (no fans)

Heatpipe cooling (for the video card too.)

Room for an 9800GT (or the new 9600GT with the reduced power requirements).

If I had a couple thousand to spend I would assuredly design my own and start prototyping it on some of the services that make custom cases. (sorry, cant' find it now, but they offer a free CAD program so you can design your case)

My problems with current cases?

CD Drives block heatsinks and make the case too big, put them under the motherboard in an additional expansion, so you can remove it if you don't need it.

Cases are too deep, front to back I haven't seen one that is the same size as a standard VCR/DVD player (AKA they won't fit around my TV in the entertainment cabinet). Fix this by making the motherboard abut the front of the case with a small gap of 1-2cm and then make the front panel modular so that the RAM slots/Headers are still usable.

Lack of good cooling solutions. Not one case has a good heatsink that comes with it. What use is a small PC if you need a freaking 1U fan that screams at 13,000RPM? Or you are forced to use a (shudder) Atom CPU?

Lack of proper space for add-on card. The only case I know of with proper add-on card space is the Morex Cubid series, unfortunately they are obscenely deep and look like a DirecTV box. Reply

It'2 not about money.
It'2 not about weak INTC's chip combo.
It's about platforms. AMD&Intel have whole platform to sell.
NVidia haven't.
Soon there will be no entry level processors from Intel&AMD without integrated GPU in CPU.

So, to resume it:

Nvidia is out of chipset business very soon.

You can call me nutjob or moron, but that is how things really are.
Look, I don't hate Nvidia, all my 3d video cards till now are Nvidia, but this is reality about future of chipsets.
Reply

"The GeForce 9400M is a far better chipset than Intel’s 945G. It should be, it’s a good four years newer. But I do wonder if we’ve taken things a little too far here. I wonder if Ion actually has too much GPU and not enough CPU? Don’t get me wrong, I like Ion; I’d like to have it over a standard 945G platform. I’m just not sure what I’d do with it."

I'd use it on our RE system ( renewable energy; Solar/Wind ), and worry less about how much power I am drawing while watching SD video at night. Also perfect for many other applications such as low res gaming, IRC, Photo editing with CS2/CS3, web browsing, and the list goes on and . . .

Bottom line; Whether you're on grid, or off grid ( RE, or utility power ) you're going to use less power and worry less about either your battery bank going down too far, or paying too much for power for doing most mundane tasks.

Right now, I use a AM2 mini ATX board with nv 6150 graphics, an AM2 1210 underclocked to 1Ghz, and undervolted to .80v, and still use ~75W with a 19" WS LCD. It'll play some modest games well @ 1024x728, it'll run CS3 well enough. However, I suspect an ION system would handle all this just as good or better while cutting another 20-30W power consumption.

Now . . . here is to hoping that "we" will see some good ~100W 80Plus power supplies around the corner. That is, assuming OEMs give us a desktop/barebones options. Reply

As mentioned, these power numbers don't seem exactly impressive. Assuming the quoted numbers are correct, plenty of laptops can match/beat those. Plus, they already include the power supplies. Assuming your monitor draws around 30W, you could easily use that with a laptop and get 40-45W total at idle, and maybe 60 W at load. Plus, it would probably not be nearly as painful as Atom to run Photoshop on. Reply

Certainly getting ahead of myself a bit, but I wouldn't be shocked if Nvidia starts moving in this direction with a low-cost, decent performing fixed hardware PC gaming platform. All you'd need is slightly faster CPU and GPU, throw in a cheap GPU for dedicated PhysX.

The ability to web-surf and play Blu-Ray back on a small platform is certainly interesting though. I agree they'll need to improve the aesthetics a bit on the housing, but for $200-300, the same price as a stand-alone Blu-Ray player, the Ion would certainly be a compelling option.

I think some of the road blocks would be the Blu-Ray drive itself, whether you could actually play Blu-Ray media. Relying on streaming or ripped copies would make the tech much less appealing. Also, how about outputs? Is the Ion able to output 8ch LPCM or lossless bitstreams like DTS-HD or TrueHD? Anyways, looks interesting for sure and certainly a nice alternative to Intel's gimpy Atom chipset/platform. Reply

To be honest, I don't think a more powerful GPU would have changed the way I use my Aspire One netbook.

There's no need to be able to watch blu-ray movies, because lower resolution DivX etc. looks just as good on the 8.9” screen, and you can store a lot more of it locally (the system obviously lacks an optical drive).

As for games, I might have installed a couple of games just for fun to see how awful they run. But I would quickly grow bored with them. Why play games at the lowest settings at 800x600 on a tiny screen using a mini-keyboard and at best a flimsy laptop mouse, when I've got a 22” monitor hooked up to a quad-core machine with 4850 graphics in the other room? If I was serious about playing games on the move, I would have skipped my desktop system altogether and bought a gaming notebook.

It might be somewhat useful as a HTPC. The usefulness of the EeeBox in such a setting was severely limited by the poor graphics performance. On the other hand, you could just as easily get a small, stylish u-ATX case and build something around a cheap Athlon X2 or low-end Core2 Duo/Pentium Dual Core. With a PCI-E x16 slot, you could even install a decent videocard (4830) and not only use the system to play HD video, but also play the latest games on the living room TV. The system would only be slightly larger and hardly louder, but the cost would be about the same and you'd get a much more flexible system, Reply

I think you are confusing CODECs with compression algorithms. The CODEC you are using in these tests is Cyberlink's h.264 CODEC which is a) tightly coupled to Cyberlink's super-crappy player, and b) (and im guessing here) only available in Cyberlink's super-crappy player. This isn't unexpected considering basically every other hardware accelerated decoder works the same way. However, I really wish that hardware decoder manufactueres would realize that it would be worlds more useful to users for their chips to ship with Generic DirectShow h.264 CODECs which could be used in ANY DirectShow based program.

Please Anand, tell me I'm wrong and that the Cyberlink Player is actually running off of a DirectShow CODEC which is available to any other application!!! (in which case, why are you using that crap software?) Reply

Last I checked, PureVideo is a player using it's own CODEC. I think it's up to the OEM to pay to include it with their cards and I dont think any of them do, or if they do, they include what amount to 'lite' versions of old versions. I'm guessing nVidia decided to forgo maintaining their own player and just let Cyberlink handle all that. Even their website says to buy PowerDVD instead of PureVideo if you're running vista. Reply

PureVideo is just marketing lingo for GPU accelerated video. All cards from 6600GT and up (I have a 6600GT, but it might apply to earlier cards) can offload a certain amount of CPU load to the GPU. With a 6600GT and an Athlon 64 3200+ (@2.5GHz) a 1080p video results in about 60%-80% constant CPU usage. Without GPU acceleration even 720p videos are unplayable. And VLC supports offsetting load to the GPU on Linux and Windows platforms. I know gXine also has the same support on Linux.

PureVideo is more than a trademark... Its an application which interfaces with the nVidia driver to accelerate decoding. A program cannot simply offload to the GPU. Each card implements decode acceleration differently and applications must use some API that the driver exposes. Research would indicate that VLC is NOT hardware accelerated on Windows or MacOSX. Reply

nVidia offered two different items under the Purevideo name. One is the Purevideo software which was their for sale MPEG2 decoder for DVDs and similar content. It is just a codec designed to allow other programs to play back MPEG content. It does support certain hardware acceleration features but does not do anything other than MPEG2.

The newer PureVideo HD is the name given the hardware decoding engine built into most 8xxx series and all newer graphics cards for handling H.264 decoding. It requires a software codec to implement it on the hardware, hence the use of Cyberlink in the tests. The GPU driver won't automatically shift H.264 decoding to the GPU.

My understanding was that nVidia supported little of the VC-1 decoding on-chip. It's ATI that offers support for both in hardware. Reply

To be able to get hardware acceleration you need a DXVA enabled decoder.(assuming windows platform)
The Cyberlink decoder uses this and you can use the decoder with any player you want (that can be configured with external decoders)
I use the Cybelink decoder with Media player classic.

Another decoder that has DXVA support is the internal decoder of media player classic home cinema, so you dont need to buy powerdvd for the decoder.

Well, I can see a very nice and proper application for that kind of platform, it's exactly the thing I would buy right now - a tiny "file server" where I can easily pile up my music, and various backups as well.

Zotac was very close to the point, with a mini-ITX board at CES, loaded with the GeForce 9300 chipset and all kinds of other goodies. However, it had a major problem, in my opinion - it just needed a "stand-alone" CPU, wich leads to the nasty problem with cooling. I have some sleek mini-ITX cases in mind, but they would never allow something bigger that a low-profile heatsink to fit in.

In the same time, the lowest TDP offering from Intel for s775 right now is a 35W Celeron 420, which may make things difficult on the cooling side.

So a mini-ITX board built around an Atom 330 could be a very decent solution. If you wonder why I haven't bought one of Intel's offering by now - well, I would like at least Aero enabled on my machine :) (ok, GMA950 can handle it to some extent, but it's not a smooth experience). Beyond that, none of the "essential" boards with embedded Atoms feature PCIe slot, which is something I would hope for on a Ion board.

Just go to the mini ITX case section at newegg.com. They have a bunch of cases that can handle those higher power processors.

I'm testing the Winsys case, works great, and not too tight. Has a 200w power supply, but could be a bit higher quality. The Foxconn case is nice, has a FSP power supply, but is a bit cramped with the optical drive, and ppl say it has a loud fan in it.

For that matter, a 2.5ghz dual core 45nm Pentium takes so little energy anyhow. My SG31G2 with that proc takes 75 watts at full load, with a 750GB WD Green drive.

And, the heatsink that comes with that processor is fairly low profile, and will fit fine in the Foxconn or Winsys case. It will kinda fit in those Apex cases if you deal with the power supply a bit. Reply

What kind of Sleek ITX cases you have in mind. I find that the case selection is really the pitfall of the ITX market now. Would be nice if Lian-Li made some no BS case and Antec Came out w/ something nice bu affordable. Reply

You may want to take a look at caseking.de, I saw some really nice offerings from Silverstone there. There are a couple of models that come with built-in low power PSUs (must be some variation of the picoPSU), like that nice La Scala SST-LC19B-R or the real gem I would eagerly buy, the SST-ML02B-R Milo. The prices aren't exactly bargain, but given the high quality and niche status of such cases I find the ~170E level relatively acceptable. The only problem is the realy low height of those models which makes component selection a nightmare. Reply

What would be nice is to see Case MFGs make some cases dedicated to Mini ITX file servers.

Take something that looks like a NAS box with 4 drive bays and just stick a Mini ITX mount in the very bottom. Compared to 4 x 3.5" SATA drives, the Mini ITX board would be quite small.

the caveat here is you would need a way to run 4 drives. But the Ion reference has 1 SATA and 2eSATA, and you could always add a JMicron type chip as well seeing as now nVidia says no limitations on bundles, so it shouldnt be that hard. Reply

This thing is screaming for a Boxee install on it. Since its open source, would be an awesome way to make a linux install w/ all drivers on disk ready to go for such a machine like this that could offer everything. Also looks like Nvidia will have a little competition from intel since the N280 is coming out later this year along with the GN40 chipset that will replace the craptastic 945G. Reply

I have a car that has a decent-sized LCD screen built into the front of the dashboard (review camera, climate controls, etc.) From the moment I heard about Ion I got excited. I want to build one of those things into my car. I sure hope they are released with good pricing before the summer's over, because that's what my summer project will be. Kits online abound that add an external video input into my car's LCD. With one of those kits, I want to integrate the small Ion PC into my dashboard. I will also connect bluetooth and wireless N to it. I will integrate a USB port right into the dash as well. Using a solid state disk, I'll be able to consume a minimum amount of power, but it will be connected to everything. I'll have music on it, when we park in our driveway we can wirelessly sync content from our home media server, use a bluetooth mouse on the the dashboard, a bluetooth keyboard when we're at a random hotspot to surf the web. I'm so stoked for this. It will be noticeably faster than the 945 in all tasks, and playback video flawlessly. We won't have to pack around the laptop in the car to play videos for my son anymore. And, the project won't cost an arm and a leg ... hopefully.

I noticed this too. Was powerplay not fully implemented in this thing? The Atom 330 is spec'd for 8W TDP vs. 2.5W for the 230 used in the Eee Box so the difference in power usage here seems to reflect that exact bump of about 5.5W in the CPU. So that means those power consumption figures point to the NV chipset using just as much power as the dinosaur 130nm 945G chip. What gives? I know there are a metric crapton of features added by using the NV chipset, but I would still expect an overall reduction. Remember that most reviews of the Atom platform seemed to blame the 945G for the "high" power usage figures. I would have hoped a more focused mobile-oriented chipset would have done better. Maybe the problem is in the demo box? It looks as if they are using dual phase power distribution where they could probably get away with single phase for something like this, maybe that is the culprit. Reply

Remember the whole CMOS vs. GTL bus stuff. AND, the US15 has NO SATA on it. Kinda useless for the desktop.

Of course the laptop variants will pull less power than the desktop variants, but the desktop parts should be cheaper.

Btw, with Zotac set to release an Intel 9300 Wifi mini-ITX board, why bother with Ion on the desktop? The current 7100 Zotac ITX board + 430 Celeron costs around $20 more than the dual core Intel Atom board, and the chipset on it runs at the same temps, 60c (that is, I replaced mine with a Zalman blue heatsink). It also gives you a pci-e x1 slot, DVI, better graphics, two slots for ram, and the fan on the Celeron is much quieter and unlike the fan on the Intel 945 chipsets, doesn't die (check out newegg.com for reviews of people 2 months down the road).
I've tested that board and it rocks. You do give up s video and gigabit eth, but the new 9300 board will fix all that with both DVI and HDMI, and will have a x16 pci-e slot. Reply

Bitorrent clients would run extremely well on this machine even if it was clocked at 800mhz. Your bottleneck here is in your internet connection. Of course you could be planning to hide one of these tiny boxes under a floor tile in a server room at work. Reply

I have setup a netbook at home (Acer aspire one 150 with 1.5gb of ram) as a bittorrent server that uses uTorrent with webui.

I believe the Acer uses a Atom 270 and this has more than enough power to run the client, apache, windows 7 and various other bits of software I don't want to leave running on my electricity eating monster of a desktop 24/7. Reply

I don't know about that. Though the Mini has a weak GMA 950 IGP, the Core 2 "Merom" is inherently faster than the Atom, even at the same clock speeds. Using the 9400M in the MacMini though would be ideal though. The Ion platform is better suited for the Apple TV. In fact, I remember hearing a rumour that Apple was considering it. Reply

Only with the raging red rooster hatred of NVidia can a winning combination on a faster machine be dissed so pathetically.
The massive bias of anand comes out in the first sentence : " It would be silly to dislike ion".
Well, since anand so fervently dislikes nvidia, he had hoped to dislike ion, but it would be silly too.
That still doesn't prevent him from using every angle he can imagine to discount the faster platform as 'no good" "not needed" " unneccessary" and on and on and on. Even "not fun" to play games on.
Oh my, when nvidia stiffs him again, and derek, and they drool out some more absolutely ridiculous bias that they would NEVER say concerning nvidia's competitor, neither one will feel any personal reason why they got hammered -again- it will be a clueless blank drooling stare immediately followed by anger and more hatred, if that were actually possible, directed at nvidia... for "being unfair" and "arrogant". lol
It's really hilarious, and sickly, too. Reply